tuscanraider

hey...

I'm a new first time owner of MB. I bought a '03 c230k sedan in June, I was just wondering what people recommend as far as rims/tire brands for winter driving? I live in NJ where the weather can get nasty. What are some of your tire and wheel combos?

This is a great board, I hope to learn alot.

Mark08859

I have the 17 inch C7 option on my car. For this past winter, an order was placed for Mille Miglia MM-11 wheels with Dunlop Winter Sport M2 tires. I did a minus one conversion to 16 inches. No problems in the snow. My traction control was kept active throughout the entire winter.

The package was ordered from TireRack Hope this helps.

BTW, welcome to the forum!

Luke@tirerack

in about 6-8 weeks I will be posting many possible options (afterall is is early August and most places in this hemisphere don't see snow this time of year)

Shaummy

I ordered a set of winter wheels/tires for my slk320 SP1 just last fall.

I went with the -1 option to go back down to 16" wheels from my 17's that were on the car.

I added Bridgestone Blizzak's (LM-22) to them and had no problems getting around in the the Chicago winter.

I used 205/55/R16 all around for good traction.

tuscanraider

this is probably a stupid question, but what is a -1 conversion, and how is it calculated?

Shaummy

Usually it is called plus sizing of a wheel and tire combo. In that scenario, you would want to increase the wheel size say +1 from say 17" to 18" and shorten the siewall and improve handling and performance.

It usually also widens the tire so that the contact patch with the road is bigger.

Now take that to the opposite way of -1, say from 17" to 16". This would make the sidewall taller and the tires somewhat thinner . As I understand it, this allows the weight of the car to be concentrated into a smaller patch and can help push the tire down through snow for better traction.

However this is not going to be enough all by itself to provide good witner traction, it helps to have tires that are made for either M+S (Mud + Snow) or Winter only to help make the difference.

I believe that the winter tires these days usually have special rubber compounds in them that can help keep traction high in cold temperatures.

Anyhow enough rambling.

Here's a link to a brief description of plus sizing.

http://tirerack.com/wheels/tech/plusone.htm

I'm sure if I got some of this wrong somebody here will help correct me.